The natural-artificial garden
A visit up North reminds this gardener
to take her cues from nature

by Sharon Parker
published Sept. 2

I am “up North” as I write this, at a family cabin in the woods (more or less) near Longville, Minn. This area provides such a marvelous study in contrasts for someone who loves nature and gardens—from the unrestrained wildness of the woods to the occasional manicured lawn tucked between stands of trees and undergrowth.

And it reminds me that, no matter how we might like to think of our gardens as natural and organic, they are inherently artificial. They require human intervention to get established and thrive, and to keep out the undesirable elements, whether it’s poison ivy or creeping bellflower.

Behind Common Grounds coffee shop in Longville is an extensive garden that does a pretty good job of balancing the natural and the artificial, providing a haven for the humans who sip their coffee on the shady patio and for the much smaller visitors who frequent it.

The garden was installed several years ago by a local company, and I have enjoyed watching it mature whenever I visit. Just a few feet from the patio, a drainage ditch masquerades as a creek bed, lined with smooth stones of varying sizes and planted with sedges, ornamental grasses, wild irises and the like. A wooden footbridge leads visitors across this “creek” to a small grassy area surrounded by trees and brush, where a screened gazebo and several chairs in small conversational groupings await them. I can no longer remember whether the seeming-wild wooded area surrounding this was already there when the garden was installed or if it was planted as part of this garden plan.

The flower garden that lies between the patio and creek (let’s just call it that, even though it is quite dry this summer), is a riot of low-maintenance perennials, a few native flowers and ornamental grasses, some small ornamental crabapple trees, and assorted structures that serve both as focal points and wildlife stations. A four-hook stand holds feeders with nectar, seeds and nuts; it was visited by chipmunks, nuthatches, chickadees and hummingbirds while I watched. A shallow glass bowl of water nestled atop a rusted metal tower was popular with the chickadees.

Anyone with a bird feeder in their yard knows how quickly the weeds sprout up around it, so I know that a vigilant gardener must be at work here. It also appears that the area immediately surrounding the feeders is open and barren, suggesting a gravel or artificial base where the spillage could land and be easily swept up. But the hand of the gardener is not readily apparent, and one can easily imagine that the garden sustains itself without intervention, even while knowing that it cannot possibly be so.

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In other words, the garden looks natural, even though it is, in fact, artifice. That is not a criticism—the word “artifice” comes from a French word for craftsmanship. A pleasing natural-looking garden is a work of fine craftsmanship coupled with an understanding of and respect for how nature works. Successful gardeners impose their aesthetic ideas on nature while at the same imitating her.

Consider these gardening tips from Mother Nature:

Match the plant to the place, taking into consideration not only the sunlight, but also the type of soil, whether the spot in question is high or low (influencing how much water will settle there), and if it’s open to breezes or sheltered. Hauling in black dirt to compensate for sandy or clay soil is a stopgap measure that will do no good in the long run—the natural soil conditions will reassert themselves. So if you have heavy, alkaline soil, you will be much happier if you put in plants that are OK with that.

Plant a diversity of species. While a dozen or more plants of one type can make a strong visual statement, carrying that concept too far provides a feast for the insects and diseases that prefer that particular plant. Mix it up, both in your lawn and in your garden.

Respect natural selection. Plant breeders have tended to favor flower size and color, whereas nature, over millions of years, chooses plants that resist disease and pests and attract pollinators. While it isn’t necessary to choose only native plants to have a healthy garden, it does help to select those cultivars that have stood the test of time: the old-fashioned flowers that grew in Grandma’s garden and continued to thrive even when Grandma became too old to take care of them.

A garden that takes its cues from nature will attract a delightful mix of critters, including the predators (such as ladybugs and wasps) that will police the pests for you, creating a healthy, low-maintenance garden that is a delight to the senses, benefits our urban ecosystem, and allows the gardener to sit on the patio and enjoy the lively scene, just as if she were vacationing up North.